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Church Management Software

Safety Done Right in Volunteer Management

Protect the people you care about with comprehensive background checks using advanced technology. ACS Technologies® and Verified First are partnering to bring you this new and improved solution because in today’s world, it’s never been this important to know exactly who is volunteering, serving, working, and caring for everyone in your church family.

#1. This leading, most comprehensive background check process verifies information in the top worldwide screening databases, including:

  • Nationwide criminal records
  • Sex offender registries
  • Interpol, terrorist & FBI watch lists
  • Alias searches if requested
  • Valid issuance of Social Security Numbers
  • Death index
  • Driving records
  • Education & employment verifications
  • County-level records
  • Credit check

By using this better background check service, you'll now be able to:

  • Track the date background checks were processed
  • Send background check requests to volunteers and applicants to complete so you
    never need to ask for a Social Security Number
  • Easily identify flagged reports to make the reviewing and hiring process faster

#2. It is the most integrated with your ChMS, providing you with an easy-to-use, quick way to fully manage background screenings. Here are just a few benefits:

  • Process screenings in bulk, based on a search. You can handle all of your staff and volunteers at once.
  • Search for cases where follow-up is needed, or when it’s time for a renewal.
  • Add reference codes to make it easier to connect individual screens to relevant departments.

Pastors want everyone safe.

As a leader, your ultimate responsibility is to protect your attendees and give them a safe and secure environment for worship.

  • Protect your people, finances, and records. Trust those with access to sensitive information.
  • Your church can be held responsible for the actions of an employee or volunteer found unfit for their position. Comprehensive background checks can reduce your ministry’s liability.
  • The lack of better background checks puts everyone at risk. Reduce the risk to children, youth, members, and visitors.

Staff want it done right.

Save time and effort with cost-effective, background checks. Know the work you are in charge of is being done right by people you can really trust.

  • Reduce hiring mistakes before it’s too late by providing a safe work environment for your staff and volunteers to do their jobs and care for others.
  • Comply with all federal and state laws and insurance requirements by running better and more comprehensive background checks on employees and volunteers.
  • Reduce risk of allegations of disparate treatment under Title VII laws.
Packages & Pricing

Background Checks are already part of ACS.

To take advantage of the integration between ACS and Verified First, you will need to be on version 11.7.1.22 or later.

How to set up your new, integrated background checks service in ACS:

  1. Log in to ACS.
  2. Click “Grow Your Ministry” in the toolbar.
  3. Select “Background Checks,” and you’ll be taken to the Verified First signup page.
  4. Follow the prompts to start using background checks.

You can accomplish so much more when you connect ACS to the cloud.

Access ACS is a Web-based companion to ACS’s church management software. It enables your staff to publish key information online so people can visit your church’s website and sign up for events online, give donations, find volunteer opportunities, join groups, and more.

Access ACS is a useful tool for everyone involved in your church: staff, leaders, members, or visitors. With Access ACS, you can:

  • Allow anyone to register for events and pay for them online.
  • Look up or update scheduled visitation while outside the office.
  • Screen and schedule volunteers for church events.
  • Connect people with your various ministry opportunities.
  • View specific church calendars and submit requests for rooms and equipment.
  • Review all data changes before approving and syncing with ACS People.
Contact Us
Church Growth Blog

Access ACS tracks and interacts with key ACS information online.

Access ACS can integrate with other ACS modules such as ACS People, ACS Contributions, ACS Facility Scheduler, and ACS Attendance. You can be incorporate it into your website or our Extend Platform.

People

Access ACS opens the door for anyone in your organization with assigned permissions and security to access personalized lists of activities, small group members, online maps, e-mails, birthdays, anniversary dates, and much more.

  • Set up an unlimited number of user profiles to use as permissions for various types of users (such as Elders, Finance Committee, Ministry Leaders, and Members)
  • Update personal records and photos, view group and church directories, and share with others
  • Setup and mange groups
  • View each person’s visitation history and responses (requires ACS Connections)
  • Integrate data with ACS People to create a complete information file on each prospect, including when the record was created (requires ACS Connections)
 
Giving

Online giving within Access ACS allows members to manage and track their contributions. Online giving can help increase giving levels in the church and encourages members to grow and mature in their spiritual stewardship.

  • Accept online contributions and view the details of their prior contributions
  • Contributors can give one time or recurring gifts and see gift history and giving schedules
  • Allows gifts by members and non-members
  • View contribution statements and multi-year giving history online
  • Easily give to multiple funds
  • Can accept ACH and credit card gifts
  • Print plain paper contribution statement directly from Access ACS
  • Integrates with ACS Contributions for easy reconciliation of gifts
 
Groups

Give your leaders and members the dynamic communication tools they need. Access ACS lets you connect members, attendees, and seekers to the group events that interest them.

  • Members and prospects can go online and search for the groups that interest them, find out more about them, and even request to join
  • View rosters of people in groups, send out group communications, and quickly update member records
  • Track members through connections, small groups, and special groups
  • Mark group attendance
  • Group members can access contact information, communicate with each other, and view calendars
  • Leaders can update personal records and photos, as well as view group and church directories
  • Pull lists of group members for prayer chains or emergency contact
 
Events

Online event registration within Access ACS simplifies the entire registration process by allowing members, prospective members, and even guests to discover, register, and pay for events online.

  • Register family members, friends, or groups of individuals for an event in one registration process
  • Promote an event and link individuals directly to the event registration process
  • Edit church and personal event calendars online
  • Accept full and partial event payments online
  • Print receipts directly from the event status page
 
Volunteers

Coordinating your volunteers with the positions that match their skill sets and speak to their passions is crucial to building a thriving volunteer ministry in your church. Online volunteer coordinating within Access ACS allows staff and volunteers to manage the entire volunteering process in a Web-based format.

  • Leaders and staff can post and manage volunteer positions online
  • Members can find suitable opportunities by searching for available positions based on skills, passion, experience, qualifications, or other attributes
  • Allow users to sign up for volunteer positions online
 
Privacy and Security

Your information is kept secure with private, password-protected online access.

  • All users must sign in with a user name and password before they can view any data.
  • The administrator creates the staff user accounts and sets up their passwords (Staff can then change their own passwords).
  • When member users first register for Access ACS, they must enter their first name, last name, suffix (if they have one) and email address as entered in ACS People. The member is then sent an email with the user name and temporary password.
  • You may set up an unlimited number of user profiles to be used as permissions for various types of users (such as Elders, Finance Committee, Ministry Leaders, and Members).
"The information that we need to get out there is literally at our fingertips. People want to communicate via this media, and if we aren’t ready, we can’t meet their needs.”
V. K.
CFO, New Life Christian Fellowship

Pricing

Access ACS is an additional service for clients enrolled in the Preferred Client Program, but it is automatically included with all ACS OnDemand subscriptions at no additional monthly cost.

The monthly subscription price is determined by the number of records uploaded from ACS People to the Access ACS database. Billing for Access ACS appears on your monthly support invoice and begins after you have uploaded records. There’s a one-time $300 setup fee for new subscriptions to Access ACS. Support is included with your subscription.

Number of Records* Monthly Subscription Price Bundled with OnDemand
1-599 $32.00/month Free
600-1,599 $48.50/month Free
1,600-2,999 $83.00/month Free
3000-5999 $119/month Free
6,000-14,999 $135/month Free
15,000-29,999 $173/month Free
30,000+ Call for Pricing Free
Support is included with all plans.

* One record in Access ACS is the equivalent to one individual in your ACS People database.

Example:

A 20,000 member church could export 100% of their member records and give online access to all its staff, lay leaders, and members for only $173.00/month. This would include online communications and management of Small Groups, Volunteer Ministries, Directories, Classes and Activities, Connections and Assignments, Group Emails, Attendance, Statistics and Metrics, Reports, Calendars, Event Registration, and Contributions.

 
Online Payments/Online Giving Processing Fees

After you have signed up for Access ACS, you can add these online transaction services. You can choose to accept online payments for events and/or for donations. However, a merchant account* is required to receive payments.

*For additional details about merchant accounts and how this works plus additional fees from ACS Technologies, please contact us.

Sign Up for Access ACS

FAQ's

Online Access from Anywhere

While Access ACS connects your members and leaders to online groups, events, giving and volunteering; ACS OnDemand empowers your staff with anytime, anywhere full access to all your ACS desktop software via the Internet. Empower your office with the ability to work anywhere, anytime with ACS OnDemand or empower your members and leaders to connect and interact by using Access ACS.
Compatibility

Yes, your members and leaders can use Access ACS from a Mac. However, since some administrative features do not work on a Mac, the Access ACS administrator should use a PC.

No, Access ACS uses a SQL database

 

Yes, it will work with a wireless device for those users who have permission to search for records. However, it is not responsive and may be harder to read or navigate on smaller devices.
Getting Started

You can sign up for Access ACS through the Help Center. Simply follow the on-screen instructions.

Generally, upload time takes only minutes. A typical DSL line takes 3-4 minutes to upload 1000 records with all the data in the records. We recommend you upload at least once per day if you’re making changes in your ACS database at the church office. You can upload using a modem line, but this process is slower and not recommended for large churches.

No. A link on your website lets your members sign up for an account without your help. The system is set up so that any member signing up is automatically assigned a Member Login user profile.

The system generates a link for your Web site on the Web Links screen under Admin -- Options. You can copy and paste the link to your Web site.

 

 
Managing Records

Yes. Perform a search in ACS to find the records you want to upload. Then, upload again using the search results. The new upload removes and replaces old records.

You can perform a search in ACS to choose the records you want to upload. Before you upload, select the check box indicating you want to use the latest search results.

Members can only view their own contributions. You determine who can view the data by assigning permissions inside the user profiles.

 

 

No, when you first sign up, you enter the name and e-mail address. However, an e-mail with the password is sent to the e-mail address of the member who signed up. So, even if you enter another member's name and address, that other member receives the e-mail with his password! For more information about Access ACS security features, see our security document.

 

 
Rights & Permissions

When you upload your data to the Access ACS server, you are essentially copying your data to another database. This database is the one members and leaders work with, not your ACS database. When you’re ready to approve changes that your members and leaders have made, you simply click a button to accept those changes into your ACS database.

Yes, you can create as many user profiles as you need, and you can customize each profile to fit your organization’s needs.

No, you can assign administrators in Access ACS separately from the ACS administrator.
Event Registration and Online Giving

Yes, currently you must purchase Access ACS to use Event Registration. Online event registration with no money transactions involved is free with basic Access ACS. You must also have Access ACS for Online Giving, but accepting money transactions in any form incurs additional fees.

 

You will need to setup a compatible merchant account for our Online Giving Products. We work with Vanco Payment Solutions for ACS Pay Plus.

Yes, you can accept electronic checks. With ACS Pay Plus, you can filter to accept only debit credit cards as well.

ACS Technologies does have fees for payments associated with Access ACS in addition to the merchant account. Please contact your sales representative to find out more.

Yes, you can just use the Event Registration without accepting payments. This functionality has no additional cost.

Yes, you can do this. This is included as part of your overall payments solution at the same price.

 
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Church Growth Blog

A portal to stay connected on the go.

Want to make it easy for people to give to your church? They can easily make their gifts with the churchlife.mobi web portal…anytime, anywhere! Trying to remember an event date? No need to guess at it; easily pull up event calendars while out of the office. Trying to stay organized? Add, view, and complete tasks, or reassign them to other staff members. Visiting members of your congregation? Easily access contact information and photos before making home and hospital visits.

For staff:

  • View profile, contact, and  address information
  • Initiate a call or text while looking at a person’s record
  • Pull up directions and a map for home visits
  • Manage staff tasks and follow-up activities
  • Look up and post edits to member contact information
  • View history of past connections and notes
  • View calendar events in Facility Scheduler™; members can only view published events while staff can view both published and unpublished events based on their security rights in Facility Scheduler. If Facility Scheduler is not available, the events entered into the Access ACS calendar will be shown.

For congregants:

  • Give and view their giving history 
  • View church events calendar
  • Register for events
  • Update profile and contact information 

With ACS Church Life™, you have instant access to the contacts and events in your Access ACS™ and ACS Facility Scheduler™ databases anytime, anywhere, from the portal.

This easy-to-use portal is available to all current Access ACS™ and Facility Scheduler™ clients.

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Check in with ease. Check out with confidence.

You are right to be concerned for the safety and protection of children and youth on Sunday mornings or any time they are in your facility. Checkpoint provides your organization with the assurance that you can identify and confirm the location of children at any time, and especially in the case of an emergency. Parents simply check in their kids at a workstation (either a manned or a self-guided computer). Checkpoint handles the rest. It’s also a great tool for any event type and knowing exactly where everybody is in case of an emergency.

Checkpoint is designed to work with the attendance classes, activity groups, and small groups you have set up in ACS. Members check in to sessions, which are tied to attendance, activity, and small group events. Checkpoint tracks the number of people checked into a location and enforces maximum occupancy restrictions. Finally, you can post attendance markings directly from Checkpoint.

  • Members and regular attendees can check in themselves.
  • Staff or volunteers can check in visitors and manually produce security badges for them.
  • Compatible with touch-screen monitors
  • Print additional name badges for items like diaper bags, and bottles
  • Check in and out of multiple sessions at one time
  • Display a selected individual’s picture for photo identification at check in/out
  • Attendance, based on those who have checked in, can be posted directly from a manned check-in workstation directly into ACS Attendance.
  • In an emergency, staff can produce session statistics to assure accurate records of everyone and their location.
"Since we started using Checkpoint, I know who is in the Children’s Wing and who is not. We are able to get accurate counts and save so much time posting attendance.”
Dean
Children’s Pastor at CrossPointe Church

Assisted or Self Check In

The tracking capability of the Checkpoint module is based on a workstation system. Workstations can be manned for visitors or unmanned for members and regular attendees.

Coordinate email newsletter themes with your check-in screens.

With ACS Checkpoint, you can customize your Vacation Bible School (VBS) check-in screen to compliment the design of your VBS emails. Chose between your own images or use one of our pre-designed themes including VBS designs for Group’s Crocodile Dock and Lifeway’s Boomerang Express as well as other generic designs.

Connects to Individual information

  • Notes such as allergies and medications, can be added for each individual and printed on the security badge.
  • Pager numbers can be assigned to families ahead of time.
  • You can assign your own 9-digit barcode to each individual in place of the system assigned barcode. Barcode must be ACS compatible and approved.

Customized Security Badges

  • Customize and print security badges with unique information and special notes.
  • Each badge prints a system-generated, random number. This makes each security badge unique, ensuring an exact match when the parent or guardian returns to pick up the child.
  • Badges can be designed for each activity (Sunday school, fund raising events, or youth group).
  • Individual pictures can be printed on the badge for quick identification.
  • If multiple children from one family are checked in, all of their security numbers display on the parent’s badge.

Visitor Check In and Badges

  • Newcomers or visitors can be entered manually in Checkpoint and receive a security badge.
  • New people can be added to ACS People directly from Checkpoint if needed.
  • Data-entry defaults will automatically pull over People Setup but can be reset for records added through Checkpoint.

Secure and Confidential Tracking

High security ensures that only staff with the proper clearance will have access to ACS Checkpoint and not to other parts of ACS. Password-protected check-in computers prevent someone from exiting Checkpoint and accessing other data.

Customize Multiple Sessions

  • Any master group from ACS People, Activities, or Attendance can be configured as a session in Checkpoint.
  • Names associated with that master group are automatically available for check in.
  • Visitors or new prospects can receive security badges whether they are added to ACS People or not.

Post Attendance Easily

Simply configure Checkpoint to interact with the ACS Attendance module to mark attendance records. Then you can immediately post attendance markings for individuals who are “checked in” a session.

Review Accurate Lists of Children and Adults in Attendance

Once an individual has checked in, you can quickly find his or her individual information in the Checkpoint module by barcode scan, the last 4 digits of their phone number, pager number, or last name.

Standard and Customized Reports

ACS Checkpoint offers cards, lists, or statistical reports that can be customized easily and saved with brief notes for future use.

Cards – Security badges and bar code labels are easily printed from Checkpoint Reports.

Lists – Listing of barcode numbers, notes, and pager numbers assigned to individuals can be printed.

Statistical Reporting – Real-time session statistics, including class, names, and checkin/out time can be reported quickly while the classes and groups are in session.

Attempting to manage all of your people, events, and facilities in one calendar is madness.

Churches simply have too many people, events, facilities, and changes to coordinate for one calendar. ACS Facility Scheduler is a hosted, centralized scheduling tool designed specifically to expand and meet the multiple needs of organizations and their facilities. With this scheduling solution, you can create and distribute custom calendars to your members and staff so that rooms and resources are never double-booked. And since Facility Scheduler is a Web-based application, you can access it from anywhere at any time.

With its unique workflow security and even more user-friendly interface, Facility Scheduler is the optimum choice for your organization. It is the latest hosted solution, so your program is always up to date and your data is always secure.

  • View one calendar or any combination of calendars with few clicks
  • Quickly check the daily, weekly, or monthly availability of meeting rooms, people, or equipment
  • Arrange meetings, reserve rooms, and book equipment and resources without causing conflicts
  • Create complex recurring events (e.g. finance committee that meets every second Tuesday or VBS that runs five consecutive days)
  • Schedule multiple locations per event
  • Broadcast schedules and announcements on screens throughout your church
  • Integrate information with Microsoft Outlook
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Church Growth Blog

Easy Entering of System Options and Events

ACS Facility Scheduler includes many built-in features that enable you to avoid double booking of rooms, people, or equipment. Some of these are the ability to:

  • Enter events as pending or approved with the ability to confirm them later.
  • Cancel events and keep information in the system for reference.
  • Enter recurring events or events that span multiple days.
  • Book resources and extra setup or teardown time.
  • Enter separate rooms and then combine them to be booked as one resource. For example, you may have a multi-purpose room that can be divided and scheduled as four smaller rooms.

Accessible Anytime, Anywhere

Facility Scheduler is a hosted solution, meaning there are no program CDs to keep up with. You just install the application, and it’s maintained and updated for you by ACS Technologies. In addition, you’ll have:

  • Regular, current backups of your data in case of emergency.
  • Secure data transfer.
  • Server hardware repairs, upgrades, and replacements.
  • 24-hour network support for connection to server.
  • Up-to-the-minute software updates, so you’re always using the latest version.

Ultimate Control

  • Setup – You decide how many calendars and event types to create.
  • Security – You decide who has access to view or add events to each calendar.
  • Scheduling – You decide who can add or edit events as approved or confirmed.

Built-in Reporting

Facility Scheduler comes with many standardized reports and calendar formats, such as:

  • List of events – Two lists and two 3×5 card formats.
  • List of resources – Simple and detailed lists organized by scheduled event. You can include notes if necessary.
  • Weekly and monthly calendars – Variety of options in landscape or portrait format.
  • Request forms – Customized forms for each event type you create.
  • Planning calendar – Blank calendar in either landscape or portrait format.
  • (You may view some sample reports under resources above to the right)

Sample Reports

Take advantage of this FREE add-ons!

Broadcast

Keep your members informed about all the news and events at your church.

Broadcast is a web application that lets you display events from ACS Facility Scheduler directly onto monitors within your building. And, it’s included for no additional charge with ACS Facility Scheduler. With Broadcast you can display published events up to six months out from the current date and it automatically updates if you make any changes in ACS Facility Scheduler. So save yourself time by adding Broadcast for FREE. Contact Support to get started.

Broadcast screen

Gain valuable insight into your ministry with customizable reports and analytics.

Report Designer provides advanced custom reporting options to complement ACS’s built-in reports. It enables your staff to build and share insightful reports that bring together information you have recorded in other ACS modules.

  • Powerful tool for analyzing the impact of your ministry
  • Advanced reporting tools that are simple to use
  • Quickly generate custom reports from information you track in ACS
"The Month End report group in the General Ledger module is awesome. I have been able to set up multiple instances of balance sheets customized to the way that a specific committee wants them.”
David Heald
Eastridge Presbyterian Church

The flexibility you need to get the information you want.

Build reports that meet your ministry needs with ACS Report Designer. Whether you are interested in simply including your church logo or building a fully customized report, this easy to use module provides you with the tools to make reports stand out. Make your reporting powerful, dynamic, and stress free with ACS Report Designer.

 

View information stored inside other ACS modules

Report Designer fully integrates with other ACS modules in order to pull information into one comprehensive view. Specifically, it connects to information recorded in People, Contributions, Attendance, Connections, Special Mailings, Organizations, Special Mailings, and General Ledger. Each report begins with a new or existing ACS Advanced Export as the data source.

 

No need to start from scratch.

ACS Report Designer includes seven sample reports from ACS People, three from ACS Contributions, and one from ACS Organizations. These reports can be redesigned by moving, deleting, or adding fields of information as needed. For example, you may want to provide a modified ACS People profile for all your members to review and correct in order to update your records. Plus, once a report is named and saved, it can be retrieved, edited, and saved as a new report with a new title.

 

Complete control over the final output.

With the use of data from an advanced export and the options of Report Designer, you can configure in-depth, professional reports based on data from the modules listed above. Your imagination is your limit. Now you can create a particular report or look. Supporting even the most advanced reporting needs, ACS Report Designer puts you in complete control of the information processed and the final output delivered.

 

Step-by-step tools to guide you.

The inclusion of a wide variety of toolbars and Experts (or Wizards) makes it easy to work in this module. The Setup tab for each report contains the Report Designer Expert, which walks you through the initial steps of building your report. If you have selected the Create A New Report option, additional Wizards in Report Design are available to help you get the finished content and look you want. As you work on the design of any report, you may easily preview the result with a simple click.

 
ADDITIONAL CAPABILITIES
  • Create a customized quarterly statement with your church letterhead or logo.
  • Create special reports for the Finance Committee based on General Ledger data.
  • Export a report created in ACS Report Designer and send it to your denominational office for import into their Report Designer menu.
  • Modify the blank Request for Use Form to include names of your user defined lists, fields, and dates.

You can't start the conversation if you don't know who was there.

ACS Attendance organizes and tracks the attendance history for all of your classes, small groups, and discipleship programs. It allows you to set up as many master groups as you need to monitor your Sunday morning, midweek, and home-based ministries. This module simplifies the processes of creating class rolls, absentee reports, marking sheets, grids, and enrollment forms. Attendance can easily be entered via keyboard or barcode scanner.

  • Track total worship attendance by marking individuals present or by adding an overall head count
  • Record service participation details like taking communion, leading prayer, or reading scripture
  • Print convenient marking grids/sheets that include attendance markings for the last five weeks plus two special fields such as birthday, parents’ names, or email address
  • Add reminders to the attendance sheets to inform teachers of upcoming events like teacher training sessions or mandatory meetings
  • Include blank lines for teachers/leaders to capture visitors’ names and other information
  • Maintain and monitor small group attendance in its own master group
"ACS allows me to provide detailed information to our staff in order for them to keep track of members more efficiently."
Sue M.
Black Rock Congregational Church

Tracking attendance has never been easier.

  • Take attendance at small group meetings, classes, services, and any other variety of events
  • Maintain attendance records by individual, class, or event
  • Mark a whole group as present or absent and then mark exceptions to save time in recording
  • Capture attendance information for services, events, and programs fast via a keyboard or barcode scanner
  • Use our daily attendance capability to mark attendance for more than one event daily if needed (e.g. multiple Sunday schools or worship services on one day)
  • Save time by pulling names and current contact information from ACS People or posting attendance from ACS Checkpoint
  • Mark attendance easily with the daily feature, no need to mark the same member multiple times
  • Go back and correct individual markings easily
  • Single-handedly add, delete, or drop multiple individuals to/from classes or groups

 

Helpful reports keep your staff informed and aware.

  • Create reports to analyze attendance summaries and trends across various timeframes, including multiple years
  • Report absentees by date, range of dates, or last attendance
  • Print attendance graphs and summaries for all recorded events and groups
  • Record and report when communion is received under Worship Attendance
  • View attendance trends across multiple year
  • Find your data easily with multiple search options
  • Quickly access date last attended by an individual
  • Customize and print any attendance group’s roster
  • Color-keyed window helps you quickly view summary information (attended any event) or specific results (attended particular Sunday School class or service)

 

It’s fully customizable to reflect the events and structure of your church.

There are three different types of attendance categories: Classes (e.g. Sunday School, Small Groups), Worship Services, and Activity Groups (e.g. Committees set up in ACS People). You can further define an unlimited number of events and activities by establishing divisions, departments, or classes in Christian education. ACS Attendance allows three setup options for one-, two-, or three-level structures for any activity or attendance class. Lastly, each person can have more than one record in each attendance group to accommodate those who teach or visit classes other than their normally assigned class.

 

ACS Attendance also includes a special promotion/graduation feature for at the end of a school year.

The promotion process can be set up at any time before the new classes begin. Class rolls for new classes can be printed before promotion is applied. Once the last attendance marks have been posted for the current year, the new settings can be applied. Promotion can be done either by individual or by class.

Sample Report

Don't let people fall through the cracks. Make sure your staff, members, and visitors feel connected to and a part of your ministry.

ACS Connections keeps ministry leaders informed of your church’s responsiveness to visitors and members. It’s a powerful relationship management tools that proactively prompts and records contacts with people, making interactions more personal and organized. Simply plan and enter your incoming and outgoing contacts, and you will have a clear picture of your church’s ability to follow up with people. Connections can also be used for organizing and monitoring stewardship campaigns.

  • Assign church deacons and members to oversee or shepherd specific visitors
  • Enter information about multiple persons or families at the same time you send out welcome letters
  • Easily access visit history for individuals or families
  • Plan and record incoming and outgoing contacts or visitation
  • Set up multiple phases of a capital campaign and track responses
Before the pastor makes a visit, he can go online and access a photo and any pertinent information about the parishioner that they are visiting. This feature really helps to familiarize the pastor, especially when our congregation is growing at its current rate.”
Melissa
Covenant Love Family Church

Versatility to capture the information you need.

Inward vs. Outward Contacts – It is easy to track dates of prospects’ first and subsequent contacts (inward) as needed and your response as a result (outward).

Individual vs. Family – All inward or outward activity can be recorded on the personal or family level.

Single- or Multiple-Step Follow-up – Some types of visits result in only one action by your church. For example, a first-time contact may simply receive a welcome letter from the pastor. In other cases, you may want to record and track several responses based on one inward contact. For example, an inquiry about church membership may be followed up with a pastoral phone call, invitation to the new members’ class, and a personal contact from the Membership Chairman.

  • Record all incoming and outgoing activity on the personal or family level
  • Record an unlimited number of records
  • Assign church lay leaders or members to oversee or shepherd specific visitors
  • Easily perform mass updates across all contacts or within particular groups
  • Generate lists of contacts by types, date range, or contact status
  • Easily export detailed or summary information, contact response analysis and prospect source analysis into Microsoft Excel
  • Enhance stewardship programs, such as annual fund drives or special campaigns for buildings, endowments, and more

 

Customize Visitation and Outreach Programs

Use ACS Connections any way you like. It’s like a blank canvas for establishing your outreach programs. Define or create the names of each classification of contact, response, prospect source, or other terminology to match however your church recognizes this information.

  • Easily create single or multiple-step follow-up plans with visitors or members
  • Manage denominational outreach programs and customize using your own terminology
  • Design your own Connection cards to make data collection personable throughout the year
  • Customize and print visitation cards to fit the needs of any group 
  • Store card designs for fast access as needed
  • Print cards any time and in any combination
  • Use different cards for visits such as evangelistic outreach, ministerial visit, or hospital visit

 

Graphs and Reporting Made Easy

ACS Connections offers a variety of standard reports and graphs that can be easily customized and saved with brief notes for future use. To make data collection during visits easy, you may also design your own connection cards. Then, once the information is in, you can quickly produce customizable pie charts, line graphs, or bar graphs by responses or callers.

  • Lists – You can generate lists of contacts by assigned callers, types, date range, or contact status (complete or incomplete).
  • Graphs – Pie charts, bar graphs, and line graphs are easy to create based on a variety of options. You can choose graphing by responses, callers, or types.
  • Cards – You design all cards and can include both individual and family information.

 

Integrates for Maximum Efficiency

ACS Connections eliminates double data entry because it interfaces with ACS People and other ACS solutions. For example, you can view a person’s visit history and your related church responses from within that person’s People record. You can also link directly to Mail Merge. If your organization has Access ACS, you can post information online for convenient, privately-secured viewing and data entry.

  • Increase ease-of-use when away from the church by integrating your data with Access ACS, allowing secure web viewing and data entry
  • Create a complete information file on each prospect, including when the record was entered
  • View each person’s visit history and response with ACS People
  • Link directly to Mail Merge using ACS People

The core component of your church management software solution. It’s your member database's foundation and required for all other ChMS modules.

ACS People is the cornerstone of ACS and the standard by which all ChMS systems are measured. It’s one of those modules churches pick first. Everything you do to manage information about your people (members, regular attendees, visitors, and contacts) starts here. As the foundation of ACS, each individual record entered into ACS People is available to other ACS modules. It natively integrates your data with other ACS modules, saving you a vast amount of data-entry time.

As the industry’s leading membership database tool, ACS People turns your address and phone list into a powerful ministry management tool. It quickly stores contact information that’s vital to your ministry. It makes it a breeze to keep personal and family information up-to-date, secure, and consistent.  It reports on and communicates with individuals, families, and activity groups.

  • Easily administer a centralized church membership database
  • Create pictorial directories and various other membership lists
  • Send personalized communications
  • Create census reports and many other kinds of reports right out of the box
  • Update multiple records at once instead of editing individual records one at a time
  • Maintain an unlimited number of records
"ACS helps growth in that you can manage the data more effectively; it helps us make people feel more connected and communicate more easily.”
Glenn M
Christ Church Georgetown

Data Input and Look Up

  • With both standard and customizable fields, you can enter virtually endless information about each individual.
  • Quickly access records by first name, last name, both names, envelope number, phone number, or primary address
  • Store unlimited phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses for each listing
  • Create and record unlimited emergency contacts, medical alerts, and pastoral comments
  • Import individual and family pictures from digital, scanned, or third party image directory firms
  • Group personal records together by family unit and easily update information (e.g. address) for an entire family
  • Different last names can be easily changed for an individual, while maintaining family relationships. Labels print properly for households with different last names.

Customizable Fields

  • Create unique, customizable list, data, and category fields such as activities, committees, skills & interests, spiritual gifts, and small groups.
  • Set up a multi-level structure that matches your church to makes it easier for you to retrieve reliable information necessary for mailings, lists, and reports.
  • Easily create or modify groups all at once.
  • Edit terminology within ACS to match your denominational preferences
  • Field setup is flexible, so denominational reporting needs can be met, without limiting the additional information that the church can maintain.

Data Maintenance Tools

  • Record Deactivation: deactivating an account automatically removes it from any search, filter, or label
  • Mass Change: Quickly make uniform changes to all records
  • Define Lists: Easily create new groupings and add new options to existing lists
  • Family Lists: Merge households, edit  family positions, and move children into their own family
  • Edit Accounts: Delete or edit individual or family accounts after major life changes
  • Geocoding: Add longitude and latitude for Geocoding and interface with mapping software

Built-in Communication Options

  • Save money with mailings that support CASS address verification and record ZIP + 4, delivery point bar codes, carrier route, and line of travel bar codes. Plus ZIP code sorting and barcoding
  • Set address activation periods for people with seasonal homes or locations
  • Easily interface with email programs, such as Microsoft® Outlook or Constant Contact®

Graphs and Reports

  • Adjust standard reports to meet your needs and rename and save them with notes for future use
  • Produce customizable pie charts, line graphs, or bar graphs on many system-defined and user-defined fields
  • Export reports to programs like Microsoft® Excel or Word with the “print to file” feature
  • Choose from five categories of standard reports:
    • Cards: Name Badges and 16 options for rotary and file cards
    • Directories: Fully customizable People Directory and 4 Pictorial Directory options
    • Lists: Create optional setup features using 18 different report options
    • Extracts: In addition to Standard and Customized People Extract, you may extract data to use with Sign Us Up, Olan Mills, Membermine, Lifetouch, PCA Directory, and your PDA
    • Statistics: Create 3 statistical reports with custom setup options

Security You Control

An important aspect of any database is the security of the data that has been entrusted to you. ACS People makes it easier for you to have peace of mind. You choose who has access to each specific part of your data.

  • Choose who has access to each part of your data
  • Set security for each user and comment type
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